40% Better - Engineering Leadership
Every week, we invite 1 expert on employee engagement and deep-dive into unlocking previously unheard of performance levels in teams and leaders. 40 Percent Betterhttps://40pb.com
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Mistakes, psychological safety, and leadership clarity | Rob Zuber
Welcome to the 40% Better podcast with your host, Bill Lennan!<br /><br />In this episode, we sit down with Rob Zuber to explore his candid journey into leadership—from the trial by fire of the startup world to managing complexity in scaling organizations. This conversation is a masterclass in how to build a high-performing culture by putting people first.<br /><br />Rob dives deep into the non-negotiables of modern leadership, emphasizing why psychological safety isn't just a buzzword, but the foundation for true innovation and honest feedback. We discuss the critical role of clarity in leadership, how to cultivate intrinsic mo...
Episode - AI Doesn't Replace Your Thinking It Amplifies It Jimi Li
What does it actually take to get real business value from AI? Jimi Li, CTO at ALM Media, has spent the last three years running AI initiatives inside a company that just went through a successful private equity exit — and he's got the framework to prove what works. From his early days in GE's global leadership program to building L'Oreal's e-commerce platform at scale, Jimi's career has always centred on one question: how does the work you're doing connect to business impact? That same lens is exactly how he approaches AI today.<br />In this episode, Jimi breaks down the th...
Jiu Jitsu Changed My Life and Leadership | Jeremy Hass
In this episode of the 40% Better Podcast, Jeremy Hass shares powerful insights from his leadership journey, shaped by his experiences in the military, startups, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.<br /><br />Jeremy dives into the importance of resilience, risk-taking, and personal growth, explaining how embracing challenges can lead to long-term success in both life and business. He also discusses how Brazilian Jiu Jitsu transformed his mindset, teaching discipline, adaptability, and emotional resilience.<br />The conversation explores how leaders can build strong teams, communicate effectively, and develop future leaders within their organizations. Jeremy also shares practical advice for navigating failure, pursuing meaningful...
The Risk Mindset That Changes Everything | Tamara Laine
In this episode of the 40% Better Podcast, Tamara Laine shares her unconventional leadership journey from teaching dance at a young age to working in documentaries, journalism, and eventually leading in the tech world.<br /><br />Tamara breaks down how taking risks, embracing failure, and building resilience shaped her career and leadership style. She explains why confidence is built through repetition, how communication is a learned skill, and why breaking big goals into micro tasks is essential for success.<br />The conversation also explores leadership in startups, building effective systems, and how great leaders empower their teams while staying adaptable. Tamara...
The Art of Managing Diverse Personalities | Oscar Hedaya
Serial entrepreneur Oscar Hedaya, founder of SPACE and The Space Safe, joins Bill Lennan on the 40% Better podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on what real leadership looks like across industries. Oscar's career has taken him from visual merchandising in New York to touch-screen gloves, electric mobility, and now the world's first smart safe with a built-in camera, touchscreen, tamper sensors, and app connectivity. Along the way, he's built and led teams of 25+ people across hardware, software, firmware, and design, and he shares the hard-won lessons that came from managing very different personalities under one roof. The conversation digs into the...
Why Belonging Is a Performance Metric, Not a Feeling | with Andrea D. Carter
<br />Most organizations measure engagement. But engagement only tells you who's busy, not who's going to stay. Andrea D. Carter, organizational scientist and creator of the Belonging First methodology, joins the 40% Better podcast to share why belonging is measurable performance infrastructure and what technical leaders need to build it on purpose. Andrea is CEO and Founder of Andrea Carter Consulting and creator of the Belonging First Methodology.<br />Andrea developed the first scientifically validated framework for measuring workplace belonging, starting with a two-year study across 3,500+ employees in Canada's mining sector. The findings were clear: belonging gaps aren't primarily a diversity...
Why Employee Loyalty Has Nothing to Do With Salary | Ian Watts
In two decades of coaching leaders across startups to multi-billion dollar corporations, Ian Watts discovered that companies lose talented people not because of compensation, but because they treat employees like replaceable widgets instead of human beings with aspirations beyond their job description. As founder of Employee Success Company, Ian developed the ACTS Method after reverse-engineering what allowed him to build teams with minimal turnover across 60 locations nationwide, recruiting over 400 loyal team members who knew exactly how much he cared about their personal success.<br />Ian shares why the best leaders work themselves out of a job by making themselves unnecessary...
From Dial-Up Belarus to 350 Engineers | Andrei Yurkevich
<br />In 2002, a 25-year-old Andrei Yurkevich started a software outstaffing business in Belarus with internet speeds under 100 kilobits per second for the entire country—slower than a dial-up modem. Twenty-two years later, he's President and CTO of Altoros with 350+ engineers across 25 countries, plus multiple spin-off companies including Protofire, a Web3-focused venture. Andrei shares why he spent two years answering seven questions that should have taken two hours, why distribution must always come before delivery, and how giving everyone equity ownership creates the type of organization where people leave, gain experience, and choose to return.<br />Discover why Andrei's biggest hi...
SE1E94 - From Dial-Up Belarus to 350 Engineers | Andrei Yurkevich
<br />In 2002, a 25-year-old Andrei Yurkevich started a software outstaffing business in Belarus with internet speeds under 100 kilobits per second for the entire country—slower than a dial-up modem. Twenty-two years later, he's President and CTO of Altoros with 350+ engineers across 25 countries, plus multiple spin-off companies including Protofire, a Web3-focused venture. Andrei shares why he spent two years answering seven questions that should have taken two hours, why distribution must always come before delivery, and how giving everyone equity ownership creates the type of organization where people leave, gain experience, and choose to return.<br />Discover why Andrei's biggest hi...
Run to the Inevitable: High-Trust Engineering Teams | Josh Carroll
When Josh Carroll tells his engineers not to bring him their hard problems, he's actually doing the opposite—he's making sure they feel resourced enough to tackle anything. As an engineering leader with 20+ years of experience who's scaled teams at agencies, startups, and now Skylight, Josh has learned that leadership is problem-solving with people, not code. He shares why his old boss told him to "run to the inevitable"—why waiting to have hard conversations makes everything worse—and how discovering he has ADHD transformed his listening skills after painful 360 feedback revealed he was making conversations about himself when trying to sho...
